If he worked for the local distribution company, or the intrastate or interstate company, he is probably correct. In those systems the gas would not be subject to freezing. If he/she says they h/s worked at the company operating the gas fields, do a detailed check his/her credentials. The company I worked for was one of the largest independent drilling and gathering operators in the US at that time (we had more gas wells and gas flow volumes than Exxon produced by themselves) at the time. The only other thing that could possibly have happened (within my reasoning) is that the Denver local distribution company (LDC) had thier peak gas diverted by their intra/interstate supplier to other customers that were experiencing greater hardships or had contracted for more firm transport capacity than Denver. Normally, as was suggested by other posts, various customers will request a firm volume that the intra/interstate transmission company must guarantee to transport and another peak volume that the intra/interstate transmission company will transport only if he can reasonably do so. They will follow that SOP unless an emergency is declared, in which case they will revert to making special volume assignments according to priority level of the services that are affected. Could have been one of those things. I've said all about I can say without having been sitting in the control room myself, so ... I'll definitely leave any further details for the LDC to explain away.